Mint 21.1

 I know I know I still owe a World of Warships, Favorite ships part 2.  :)

I updated Mint today.  21.1 has made a number of changes (many under the hood and not really noticed).  Apparently they are preparing (at a low level) for more integration with Wayland.  But they also made some UI tweaks!  They tweaks are not bad, in general, but the new icons, while shaped well, are just plain old manilla with the highlight color as a diagonal stripe across the icon.  I don't like it.

You can 100% still change the icons to the old ones, or anything you prefer.  Then new highlight green color is much more vibrant than the old, so I switched my icons to Tela Green.  The color is almost a perfect match.

They also changed the default desktop icons, BUT... they allow you to still configure as you like, so I quickly switched that to the way I like it, and also changed my panel sizes to match what I had before.  Finally, I had to reinstall my applets.  No big deal, took seconds, and they worked fine.

So far 21.1 seems responsive and works well, as one would expect from Linux Mint.

Give me a break...

 I am so tired of the narratives:

Daughter of mixed Mexican and Puerto Rican parents, Ortega makes it very clear to her audience that she is proud of her heritage and grateful for having the opportunity to share her culture with the world. In a 2016 Pop Sugar interview, Jenna conveys that succeeding in the American film industry as a Latina was an uphill battle, throttled by subjective casting and strict ethnic guidelines followed in the early 2000s. Despite this difficulty, Ortega did not let cultural barriers and prejudice hinder her progress as a rising star.

What uphill battle?  How many children become actresses who have acted in multiple series and movies?

Such bullshit.

SerpentOS and Ikey

 I was a fan of Solus OS years ago.

Unfortunately the main driving force behind that distro suddenly "up and left."  He disappeared for quite awhile only to reappear announcing a "new linux OS" he was working on.

Now he is pushing how wonderful this new linux distro will be (and no doubt it WILL be wonderful) but ... when will he tire of this project?  When will he decide "oh I've had enough again" and drop it like a red hot coal?

This is often what makes or breaks a linux distro.  Solus has seen little development (or interest) in at least one, maybe two years now.  But for regular people who just want an OS they can be comfortable and rely on for years to come, this is what makes linux a difficult choice.  There is no stability.  About the only distros you can "count on" are debian and Ubuntu.  Right now any linux users/developers are angrily shaking their fist at me saying "then spin your own!" or "then contribute more!", etc.  Yes that is yet another issue.  The main support you find for any linux questions are in forums run by 20+ year old programmers or children who angrily attack you if you "ask a question that is could easily be resolved if you review the source code comments" or some such nonsense.

Face it: the linux eco-system is unprofessional and toxic.  On the other hand I do love linux, being somewhat of an OS connoisseur myself.  I still have my OS/2 and BeOS disks lying around somewhere.  And an open source unix-like operating system with a wide choice of UIs and nearly infinite possible configurations is rather enticing.

Torture.  Self-torture.